Page 32 of Scorched By Fate

She fit against me too perfectly.

I broke the kiss, though it felt more like wrenching myself out past the event horizon of something unstoppable. My lips dragged away slowly, reluctantly, while every inch of my body fought the loss. I stopped when only the smallest space separated us, our shared breaths still mixing in shallow, uneven rhythm.

My wings trembled, the strain of holding them tight against my back just as agonizing as the distance I now forced between us. Her scent—gods, her scent swarmed my airways, still heavy, still drowning me in her.

Her lips—kiss-swollen and perfect—parted as though she wanted to say something. But the words didn’t come. Only her breath emerged, soft and battered, her chest rising too fast and too unevenly as her heartbeat thumped loudly enough for my heightened senses to catch all of it.

Her eyes burned into mine, wide and searching, her expression wide with an emotion I was too afraid to name. Confusion. Need. Awe. Fear. All of it swirled beneath the ash-dusted surface of her gaze.

“Zhyvarin,” I rasped.

It wasn’t just a word. It was the name I'd dreamed up for her in the nights when I couldn't ignore what she truly was to me,when the dreams wouldn't let me go. It was lightning, scoring its way through my chest—a sound shaped by fate, dragged from the deepest corner of whatever I was becoming beneath her touch.

She blinked. Once. Twice. Then something sharp sparked in her expression again—less confusion now, but caution. Her brow furrowed as realization caught up to the shock threatening to carve its way through every sharp edge between us. Slowly, her hands loosened from their grip on my scales, her fingers trembling as they hovered, uncertain, in the burning air between us.

“What—” Her voice broke, soft at first, then sharper, biting out against the searing quiet surrounding us.

A thousand answers burned on the tip of my tongue.

None dared leave my mouth.

Instead, I reached for her wrist, careful to catch it lightly, my claws brushing just barely over the fragile edge of her pulse. One step closer. Just one. Just enough for my gaze to find hers again, unflinching.

“Zhyvarin.”

The word slipped out again, unbidden but undeniable, soft and soaked in reverence.

Her brow furrowed again, the bite of defiance curling over her lips. “What?”

I couldn’t explain. Couldn’t risk it. Not now. Not with every nerve in me still locked between the ache to hold her and the fear of breaking something irreparable.

“Never mind,” I muttered, though the weight in my voice betrayed the words as a lie.

It did matter. More than anything. And the way her gaze lingered then flickered back to my lips, her own still trembling, told me she knew it, even if she couldn’t say it.

The silence between us coiled tighter, broken only by the distant hiss of geysers erupting against the ridge. My claws loosened reluctantly against her wrist, slipping back into the void that lingered between warmth and absence.

She didn’t move right away. She stayed there, shoulders caught between tension and uncertainty, her frame too frayed to dare finishing whatever storm of thought hung in her expression.

THIRTEEN

SELENE

Vyne walked beside me, his gait steady and sure, like the uneven rock beneath us posed no challenge at all. There wasn’t so much as a hitch in his pace.

I tried not to let my gaze linger on his tightly folded wings or glinting scales. Not when there were enough reasons already to keep my attention fixed squarely on the crumbling path ahead. The terrain wasn’t the only thing I had to watch for.

Two days.

That was how long it'd been since the kiss.

Two days since he’d breached every armored wall I’d thought I’d built, and I’d been stupid enough to kiss him back like breaking apart beneath him was inevitable.

Now, there was nothing between us except the grind of rock underfoot, the heavy press of the air, and the occasional sound of tremors rumbling under the surface.

Maybe I should have been grateful for the silence. But it only made the memory harder to ignore.

I yanked my focus forward, sparing no more than a second to tighten the scarf clinging against my face to help block out the rancid air. Each step dragged a little harder than the last,exhaustion pressing in sharper than the heat clinging to the air. Vyne didn’t even look winded. His focus stayed locked onto the path ahead, scanning every jagged cut in the mountainous landscape.

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